Seo Lair | SEO Blog & Software Reviews

Google Caffeine

Many SEO sites have been reporting that web page load times could potentially effect rankings in the future, including SEO Lair.  This news come out of various interviews with Matt Cutts from Pubcon Las Vegas.  While most SEO news hubs are going conservative and saying web page load times “might” or “potentially could” effect rankings, I’m just going to come out and say it will be included in the Google Algorithm some time in the future.  I’m saying this for multiple reasons.  The main rational is that Google and all the other search engines try to deliver two key things:  relevant results and a good user experience.  That being said, the user experience is devalued if Google sends users to web page that load slower than the user wants.  Google has also paved the way for implementing this in their US Patent Application #20050071741.  Check out my post about SEO news from pubcon for more details on this.

So we know that webpage load times will be important but how can you tweak your site for better performance?  There are a few excellent resources out there to answer this question: Read the rest of this entry »

SEO vs. PPC

There are always people in the digital marketing world that like to debate which channel is the best, SEO or PPC.  Although this question is very complex and could be split up into sub sections (better for what?), I have come up with a list of 10 reasons why SEO is better than PPC.  Now this is not an official opinion on which is better.  Both are good for different things, however, if I had to defend SEO this would be my reasoning…

10. SEO is not advertising- Two thirds of Americans object to online tracking. (See Article Here)  It is safe to assume that same 2/3 would also object to that information being used to better serve online ads.  SEO is not seen as advertising but rather an organic result to a search.  PPC is seen as exactly what it is, advertising.  While this could be a benefit if the user is far enough along in the buying cycle, in general it is not.

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SEO Core Metrics

I was recently asked the following question by someone in the SEO community: “How can I show value if traffic and rankings aren’t increasing?”

Many SEOs tend to focus on what I would consider “core seo metrics”, meaning rankings, traffic, and other client specific KPI’s such as leads, revenue, etc…When reporting on these metrics, it can be hard to show value, especially in early stages when you are doing initial work that might not be increasing these core seo metrics.

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